Singapore PM: US credibility on the line over TPP trade deal

The Obama administration says it remains determined to try and win congressional approval for TPP, but the chances of achieving that in the “lame duck” session after the November 8 election and before the new president takes office January 20 appear slim because of the depth of political opposition, not least from Obama’s fellow Democrats.

President Barack Obama listens as Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speak during a state arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016. Some US voters blame trade deals for shutting factories, shipping jobs overseas and favoring corporations over the environment.

“The answer is to make sure that globalization and trade is working for us and not against us”, Obama told joint news conference after talks with Lee in the Oval Office.

Advocates like Obama say the deal is a critical step toward standardizing Pacific trade and making it fairer for American companies.

Later, he continued, “Hopefully, after the election is over and the dust settled, there will be more attention to the actual facts behind the deal, and it won’t just be a political symbol or a political football”. That concern is only made more real by her vice presidential selection Tim Kaine who has been extremely supportive of the TPP and other trade deals in recent years.

Obama said he was ready to sit down publicly with people on both the right and left of the political spectrum to go through provisions of TPP to address “misinformation” about the agreement.

At Tuesday’s conference, Lee expressed his support for the deal.

“We have to be clear that we don’t have the votes right now”, said Tami Overby, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business group that strongly supports TPP. That includes many Republicans who partnered with the Democratic president past year to pass legislation giving him the negotiating authority he said he needed to strike the deal.

According to Lee, each of America’s TPP partners, especially Japan, which has a more protectionist stance on worldwide trade, has overcome multiple political obstacles to agree to the deal’s final framework. But after a close Clinton ally floated that possibility last week, her campaign chairman quashed it, insisting Clinton would remain opposed – “period, full stop”.

“We need a new approach to trade”, Podesta said. “We’re not about renegotiation”.

Singapore, a close USA partner, is one of the 12 nations in the TPP, an agreement key to Obama’s effort to boost US exports and build strategic ties in Asia.

“For America’s friends and partners, ratifying the TPP is a litmus test of your credibility and seriousness of goal”, Lee said. “But you know, there have been Republican presidents with whom I disagreed with, but I didn’t have a doubt that they could function as president”.

Lee says the world has changed dramatically since the USA and Singapore opened diplomatic relations 50 years ago.

“And if, at the end, waiting at the altar, the bride doesn’t arrive, I think there are people who are going to be very hurt, not just emotionally but really damaged for a long time to come”, Lee said. Obama said the nations’ ties go back almost two centuries when Singapore was still a colony, and the United States had recently emerged as an independent country.

The grand welcome – the first of its kind for a Southeast Asian country under Obama – is another attempt to advance the historic TPP deal, which has been agreed to by 12 member nations but needs congressional ratification. A canon fired repeatedly as a military band played the two countries’ national anthems.

The U.S. president said they shared a “common vision of a peaceful and prosperous Asia-Pacific and a more secure world”.